I’m a huge fan of Erik Larson. Devil in White City kept me spellbound–in part because I grew up near Chicago and my great-grandfather lived less than six blocks from the serial killer in that book. Wish I could write like that.

I’m also a big fan of Nora Ephron, whose career I tracked for decades because she spoke so well for a generation of young women writers entering the workforce with new expectations of their own capabilities. How I envied her early columns for Esquire!